The present invention is directed to a tool for repairing recesses and warpage in difficult to reach flat surfaces of machinery housings or casings. The tool is particularly suited for use in applications involving the truing and repair of the opposed faces of axial bearing seats.
Machinery housings and casings frequently include a pair of opposed bearing seats for supporting or restraining moving elements. Vehicle rear-end differential housings, for example, typically include a pair of opposed bearing seats, each seat when assembled having a stationary bearing cup positioned therein. When a bearing cup, bushing or similar stationary component in contact with the moving element becomes loose within the bearing seat, it can spin or otherwise move within the seat creating recesses in the seat's axial face. Such frictional wear can also result in warpage requiring truing up of the axial seat faces. It is frequently difficult or impossible to transport or to position the housing or casing for repair of such damage on a lathe or other machine tool. The axle tubes of a vehicle differential housing, for example, must be removed as a preliminary step to using a lathe for such a repair. Such procedure is time consuming and costly.
Other prior art tools for reconditioning flat casing surfaces generally use an abrasive means secured to a rotatable shaft, as shown, for example, in McCarthy et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,449,330. Such tools, however, are unsuited for many applications involving the closer tolerances associated with damaged flat surfaces having contiguous cooperating structure. Such prior art tools are unsatisfactory, for example, in the repair of the faces of axial bearing seats, where it is desired to avoid grinding the surrounding radial bearing seats while at the same time grinding the entire enclosed damaged flat surface. Further, the alignment of such prior art tools depends exclusively on substantially direct engagement of a relatively narrow rotatable shaft with the housing. Misalignment of the relatively narrow shaft of McCarthy, et al. within the casing, for example, though in many cases suitable for the removal of corrosion, can result in unacceptable error in the positioning of the grinding surface in applications requiring closer tolerances.